Progressive Dinner Dessert

I have never been to a progressive dinner, and last night was no exception. Daniel had to go do a presentation down in Lewiston, so I had the kids. But, I was asked to host the dessert portion. I didn't know how fancy these are supposed to be, so I just ran with it.

I made my famous cheesecake. The strawberries were surprisingly delicious. I thought since they were so out of season they'd be a little tart, but nope!

I decked out the table as much as I could. We had yorkie cookies, peanut brittle, chocolate toffee, fudge, red velvet cupcakes and cheesecake. The Santa punch was just strawberry soda with vanilla ice cream. After I took the pictures, I had a stroke of genius and tied a black ribbon around it with a gold buckle sticker on it. It totally looked like Santa's belly. It was way cute! Enjoy!

Holiday Happiness

It wouldn't be the holidays without some sort of crafting. I was raised with the mish-mash, not-matching, mainly home made, holiday decor. And I love it! My house my look tacky with all the different decorations, but like I said, I love it!!

So I thought I was going to make a Jingle Bell shadow box, but decided against it. I made this nice little number with my silhouette. I love how it turned out. If you can't tell what the bottom words say, it says, "Oh Holy Night, the Stars are Brightly Shining." I'm not sure if I love the straw in it yet, but we'll see how I feel in a couple days.

My front door was lacking in a decoration. So I thought I'd make one. I found this idea on pinterest and really like how it turned out. I'm not sure if it's a good placement though because next to the door, hanging on the house number is our NOEL sign. It might be too many words, too close together. Still unsure of that one too.

This little gem I LOVE! I saw this saying on a pillow on pinterest and have been saving it for something cute. So I cracked out my silhouette and this is what I came up with . If you can't see what it says, "If snowflakes were kisses, I'd send you a blizzard." Had to get all these done so I can finish my sewing projects for Christmas! Enjoy!

Halloween Cuties

I haven't been feeling very inspired lately, craft-wise. So, on my spur of the moment trip to Utah, I stopped at one of my favorite stores with my pally Kate. The Wood Connection. I let someone else be inspired and just finished it up. So here's my chubby bat. I used a metallic black paint then brushed some extreme glitter paint over it.

And this little gem, I made while I was in Utah with Kate. I love how they turned out. When I got home I added some metallic black to the edges of the paper too. I a little bit love how they turned out.

Seriously, if you live in Utah, go to the Wood Connection. It's awesome!

Fall Wreath

I decided to do a Marthafest this year again. For those of you who don't know, Marthafest is like Super Saturday for you LDS girls. Essentially, it is a day of crafting held in honor of the queen of crafts Martha Stewart. Or, it's just an excuse for a bunch of girls to get together, eat food and craft. I decided to do this wreath as one of the crafts. The picture I saw on pinterest looks different. A lot different to me. The colors are all different. I think it's because my yellow is softer and I used a dark purple and a maroon. Anyhow, I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out.

Trick or Treat!

I've seen a few Halloween shadow boxes on pinterest and really wanted to make one. I also want to make a Christmas one, but don't really want to buy 2 shadow boxes. So I tried think of some way to do them both with just 1 box. Here's what I came up with. Instead of putting the trick or treaters and words directly on the glass, I found a clear sheet protector. I measured the glass as best I could and cut the sheet protector to size. I thought I could just buy another piece of glass too, but that would cost more money and the class that comes in a shadow box is a pain to get out. I put my words and picture on the sheet protector and fit it on top of the glass.

The paper behind is easily changed out as well. So now, when Christmas rolls around I can just pull my little plastic sheet out and change the paper. Voila!

Broom Parking

I love Halloween crafts. I'm not sure why, but I just do. So I saw this super cute idea on pinterest and really wanted to make it. You can check it out here. I whipped out my handy dandy silhouette and designed my vinyl. That was the easy part. I looked on line to find a broom that would work. They were all way over priced. I just couldn't justify $20.00 for a witches broom. So I tried to think of what I would do and decided I would just have to make one. It can't be that hard right? I live on the Palouse, which essentially means I live amongst wheat & garbanzo bean fields. It's harvest time, so all the wheat fields were recently cut. But, when they cut the wheat, they only cut the top off, so there is fields of great straw looking stuff. We pulled over one day and hopped out and cut some. (my friend Marilou saw us cutting it, and told me she thought, who is that cutting wheat? Then she saw me and thought, oh, it's Erin. That makes more sense. I got a good laugh out of it when she told me;-) I found a good looking broom stick down by the grizzly bear enclosure. Brought them home and started gluing. I think it turned out pretty good actually. I looked high and low for a toad and could only find this yucky orange one at walmart. You can't really tell with the flash on the vinyl but it says, One Hour Broom Parking Violators Will Be Toad.

Didn't care for it, so I spray painted that too. Got some hooks and put it all together tonight.

I love it!!

Coat Rack

It's been a while since I posted anything. This is for 2 reasons. First, I'm a little bit pregnant and haven't really felt like getting out of bed, let alone crafting. Second, the projects I've been working on have been kind of a long process. The process was obviously extended because the general nausea present at my house, but I've finally finished up a few things. Here's the first one. We had a little coat rack that was seriously overloaded ALL the time. It just wasn't big enough. Then I saw this pin on pinterest of someone using an old pallet as a coat rack. They painted it all sorts of colors, which I didn't really care for. And I wanted a shelf on top so it would have a more finished look. Now anyone who has been to my house knows there has always been this huge basket by the front door FULL of shoes. Overflowing with shoes is more like it. There were always shoes all over the floor around it. It's been driving me a bit mad. So when I was telling Daniel what I wanted to do with the pallet he suggested we build a box to go underneath for the shoes. GENIUS!!! My husband is super smart! Luckily, Daniel was working at SYG nursery for the summer and had access to as many pallets as he wanted. We went over and picked a nice one out. I rinsed as much of the dirt off as I could and then sanded the whole thing the next day. We got some wood from our complex who had just poured the foundation for a new shed, to use for the box too. Daniel built the little box and cut a nice piece of wood for my shelf and gave it a nice edge. We spray painted the whole thing white and then sanded some of the edges to give it a little character. Then I used a nice wood stain over top the white to antique it a bit. Seriously cheaper then the glaze I've been using on everything else. I ordered these vintage door plates with glass door knobs for hooks on the top. I REALLY wanted them, and paid way too much as a result. I couldn't find any on amazon or ebay that were cheaper. So if anyone knows where to find vintage door plates for a decent price, let me know. They finally showed up and were all the wrong color, so I spray painted those too. Daniel put everything together today and VOILA!! A new coat rack. I love it!

I especially love the shoe box. It works SO much better! I don't always have shoes all over the floor anymore. I LOVE it! And if I hadn't spent so much on the silly door plates, this project would have cost me $12.00. Not bad!!

Glass Etching

Do you know how hard it is to take pictures of etched glass? It's hard. I must have taken these pictures 20 time and they still didn't turn out great. Oh well. When Daniel and I got married, someone gave us a 9 x 13 pan with our last name etched on the bottom. It was my favorite pan. Sadly, Daniel put it on the stove to wait for the oven to preheat. Then went to cook something on the stove top. He turned on the wrong burner and my beautiful, personalized pan was shattered into a million pieces. So I decided to make my own. I know I've said it before, but I'll say it again. I LOVE MY SILHOUETTE!!! Hands down, the best Christmas gift I ever got. Way to go Daniel!! I made my little design, cut it out in vinyl. Put it on the pans and put some Armour Glass etching on it and voila! Personalized pans.

I did learn a few things along the way though. 1st you really have to glob it on. It needs to be thick. Second, the blogs that say you only have to leave it on for 10 minutes are lieing. You really need to let it sit for 30 minutes to 1 hr.

It's hard to tell, but this is my pie pan and it says 'A Sweet Treat!'

This last one is super hard to see, but it's the side of the pie pan and has our last name on it. My sister and I did all these together and hers turned out super cute. Now I just want to go around etching everything!

Initial Wall Decor

I saw this super cute oval frame at a thrift store and since they are hard to find, I bought it for $1. It was the classic picture frame gold color that I didn't love. But I waited until I decided what I wanted to do with it, then I painted it. I have been totally in love with the latest robins egg blue phase. And it just happens to be one of the colors in my room. So I decided to paint the frame that color and antique it with the General Finishes, van dyke brown glaze effects. Someone in Utah send me more of that! I got it from the Wood Connection and I'm almost out!! This was my 1st time priming anything and it worked out so much better then all my other spray paint projects. I'm converted.

I looked everywhere for the right B to go in the frame. I was unsuccessful and settled on this one. I'm still not in love with it, but if I come across the right one, it's easily replaced.

I do like the colors though. It goes perfectly with our bedroom.

See what I mean about the font? Just don't love it. But, I am pleased with the overall product.

Silhouette Pendants & Resin

I've seen a lot of decoration with silhouettes lately and thought they were really cute. Many of the tutorials I found gave game complicated instructions on how to photograph your child then trace by hand and cut out by hand which I just thought sounded like too much work. I finally found a tutorial on how to do all that with photoshop. From there, it was super easy to open the picture in my silhouette studio and have it cut in vinyl. The only tricky part was getting the scrapbook paper to fit in the pendant just right. I knew the dimensions of the pendant and just sized down from there. I made several different sizes and cut them out on scratch paper first. I found the perfect size, copied it 3 times and sized the silhouettes to fit inside. I did have to use YES paste to glue the paper in the pendant. Then I put the vinyl silhouette on and added another coat of YES paste because I didn't know how the vinyl would react to the resin. I mixed up the resin and poured it on. It's supposed to degas on its own and remove all the bubbles, but the next morning there were still some bubbles which I foolishly attempted to remove with a hair dryer, which created more bubbles. So then I attempted to use a pin and pop them. Well that just pulled some of the resin up. Finally I decided to just leave it alone. It dried and is far from perfect, but I'm pleased enough with it to wear it. I think I might try a bracelet next time.

Any suggestions out there on how to remove bubbles without pulling the resin up?

Chair Recovered!!

I know its a little bizarre to be so excited about a chair, but I am. I've never recovered anything before so for a recovering novice, I'm pretty pleased.

I just popped the back cushion out and used a staple gun to recover it. The bottom cushion was a bit of a pain because it was stapled and bolted it. I had to borrow my husbands muscles to get the staples out. It was a little tricky but I'm really happy with it!

Let Freedom Ring

I had this red charger I got on clearance at Hobby Lobby sitting around and decided to do something festive with it. There's always the classic flag decoration for the 4th of July, but I wanted something different. I wanted to do Let Freedom Ring and luckily I found the liberty bell shape to go with it. I cut out the vinyl on my silhouette and voila!

Firecrackers

I've seen so many cute, crafty firecrackers the last few years and decided it was time to make my own. I didn't want to do the typical flag design on one firecracker so decided on this design. I've had this 6 foot 2x12 piece of wood in my sewing room for a long time and decided to start putting it to use. Daniel cut out some blocks out for me and I trimmed them to the length I wanted with my scroll saw and sanded them up. I think I need to get a 1" belt sander to get the effects I want, but it'll have to wait for another day. I LOVE my silhouette SO much! I would never be able to write anything and have it look this good. So, as a solution, I typed up what I wanted in my silhouette studio and cut it out in vinyl and used that as a stencil to paint over. I think it turned out great. I also love the glaze effects from General Finishes. I use this Van Dyke Brown on EVERYTHING! It antiques it and makes it look amazing. I've had this jar forever and it's just now starting to run out. Happy 4th of July!!

4th of July!

I have no July 4th decorations, so I thought it was time. I looked all over pinterest and saw a few things that were cute, but nothing that I REALLY wanted to make. So I thought up this one all on my own. I have this huge piece of 2x12 wood in my craft room so my super cool hubby cut it down for me. He used the router on the edges to give it a clean look. But in hind sight, I think it would look cleaner with a smaller wood. 2 inches is just too thick. So I sanded it and painted it with real blue. Then used some of my glaze on it to age it a bit. (can I just say that I LOVE that stuff!) Then used my Silhouette to cut the vinyl. I couldn't decide on what phrase I wanted to use. I thought maybe, "I Pledge Allegiance . . . to the Flag." Or "One Nation . . . Under God." But finally settled on this one. I'm kind of loving it. If anyone wants one, let me know! I'll sell you one!

Father's Day Wreath

I saw this tutorial on pinterest a long time ago. Probably when I fist discovered pinterest. I've wanted to make it ever since and now that father's day is almost here, I decided it was time. The tutorial has you wrap the wreath with jute, but that just seemed a little too labor intensive for me. I decided to use burlap instead, and it worked out pretty well. One thing I'm not loving is how it doesn't seem to have a lot of contrast. I think I needed to paint the letters a blue or something. I guess there's still time to do it! You can see the tutorial here Enjoy!

New Dress

This is the dress I made for Ava to wear to the wedding. It was a heavy-itchy fabric that frayed like crazy. Luckily I figured out that it had some nylon in it and just took a lighter to the edges which helped with the fray. I'm too lazy to go buy fray check;-) The pattern didn't have a lining for the skirt and we wanted all the dresses to have a little pink petty-skirt (is that how you spell that?). So I essentially made a second skirt out of the lining and attached the pink tulle. I also made my 2 niece's dresses for the wedding. They all turned out pretty cute. Caitlin's turned out a little shorter then I thought it would, but looking at the pattern again, I think it was meant to be kind of a baby-doll dress. Luckily I added lining to that dress too, so I could extend the length a little with the pink tulle. I love how Whitney's turned out too. She's the oldest granddaughter so I wanted her to look a little older, so Christina and I picked out this pattern. I made an extra flower for her dress too. The wedding colors were bubblegum pink and silver and black I think, so they all looked adorable in the dresses. Luckily my sister in law Melissa, can sew too and made her daughters dress and the bow ties for all the boys. Everyone complimented them all on how cute they all looked together. It was fun because I'm starting to feel more comfortable altering patterns to what I want.

Flower Barrettes

My brother in law got married a couple weeks ago. My sister in law and I thought it would be fun to have all the grandkids match for the pictures. So she made all the bow ties and a dress for her daughter, and I made 3 dresses and all the hair bows. I found a great tutorial on pinterest for these flowers. It was super easy and simple and I LOVE how they turned out. My little model, isn't she so cute?! You cut 6 circles in the shiny-vinyl-ish fabric, each getting progressively smaller. And make 5 cuts halfway in around the side. The tutorial says to use a tea light for the next part, but it was so small it didn't work well for me. So I grabbed a regular candle. You hold the fabric about 2 inches above the flame, and watch it curl! At first I tried it with a lighter, just on the edges and it didn't work very well. So it's important you actually hold it 2 inches above the flame. Then you stack the flower petals. You can glue each one on to the other if you want. I just stacked them and sewed on the pearly beads for the flower center to hold them together. Then I just hot glued them onto a barrette and voila! A flower! They looked so cute on all the girls!

Garden Markers

It has been a while. Things have been crazy busy at our house lately. Mostly I've been sewing like a mad woman for an upcoming wedding in the family. 3 dresses to make before Thursday, I'm almost done. As a result, however, my crafting has been put on hold. BUT! we did find time to make some garden markers for Family Home Evening.

The kids loved it. We hit the local thrift store and bought a bunch of mis-matched spoons for dirt cheap. Then Daniel pulled out his drafting pens and started drawing little sketches of each plant we planned on growing. The kids drew some too, like the strawberry one in the picture below. That is courtesy of Parker;-)

Daniel colored up the edges a bit and put them on the spoons. Then we covered them with Beacon 527 Multi-Use glue.

It's great for glass, metal and all other kinds of surfaces. And it's water-proof, clear, and fast drying.

We let them dry overnight and voila! Garden markers that we love!

PS- I found this idea on Pinterest. The link to the tutorial is here.

3 Easter Dresses-3 Weeks!

I haven't posted in a while because I have been glued to my sewing machine! Since I only have 1 daughter, I feel it's my duty to sew as many cute dresses for her as possible before the day arrives when it is no longer "cool" for her to wear dresses made by mom. Easter is on the horizon and I wanted to make her a pretty dress. I initially wanted to do something in a pastel color, it's more springy, but fell in love with this red polka dot. I can't wait to see it on her this Sunday!

I'm lucky enough to have my sister live nearby and she too has only 1 daughter. I should say, 1 daughter and 4 boys. Naturally, I feel that she needs as much girly-ness as she can get. My sister bought this adorable fabric weeks ago with the intention of making an Easter dress. But, as you can imagine, with 5 kids, 2 of which are 2 year old twins, she ran out of time. She told me she didn't have time and was just going to buy a dress for Easter. I don't know why, but I just can't let cute fabric go to waste, so I took it and made the dress. It turned out really cute.

My sweet friend Kate was over and saw Ava's Easter dress and fell in love with it. She wanted one, in her words, "exactly like it" for her baby girl. I didn't have a pattern that small so we picked out another. But she definitely wanted the same red polka dot fabric. Here's the end result.

I love how the all turned out! I can't wait to see all these sweet girls on Sunday! One tip for sewing with a pattern, ALWAYS press when it says to press.

Irish Post

I thought I'd post these creations on my craft blog even though I posted them on my family blog too. I promise not to re post anything again, but I wanted these creations to be included. It was almost rude to them if I didn't.

I bought this charger plate at Wal-mart clearance for $1. Getting the words to cut right on my Silhouette was a little tricky. I haven't figured out how to write words in a shape in the silhouette program. So my handy husband who uses Adobe Photoshop regularly, did it in photoshop and then traced it in silhouette.

This is my famous horseshoe. It was featured on Night Owl Crafts and was the inspiration behind this blog. I used my handy scroll saw to cut it out, the hubby's drill to make the holes, painted, antiqued and attached some shamrocks I found at Joanne's with some cute twist wire. I love it!

These Irish blocks I made with my silhouette as well. I cut the vinyl and paper out and mod podged it on. I kind of love them. Happy St. Patty's Day! On to Easter!

Baby Shower/St. Patricks Day Party!

My sweet friend is having a baby next week. Me and another friend Kate, threw her a baby shower and it just happened to fall on St. Patrick's Day. We thought it was meant to be because she is naming her baby Killian which is an Irish name. So we ran with it. Here is what we created!

The favors we made had an Irish saying along with some treats. I printed them with my sketch pens on the silhouette and then cut it out. I love that you can sketch things on the silhouette and leave the mat in it and then have it cut it.

Kate spent a lot of time making these cupcakes. She split the batter up and colored them all. Then she layered them in the cupcake wrappers. I made the toppers. I again used my silhouette to cut them out. They took a little more time then I thought they would because I had to use the sketch pens for the rainbow first, then cut it out, then cut the clouds, banner and yellow background cloud, separately. Then I had to color the rainbow, glue it to the banner, then glue the white cloud to the yellow cloud, then glue them both to the rainbow.

It was a lot of work and I was sad to see them all thrown away after the party. I guess in hindsight, I could have just taken them off the used toothpicks and kept them for another party. Oh well, too late now.

I found this super cute idea on pinterest. It was pretty simple. I've had a lot of leftover clothes pins from another project and decided to use them up. Really, my silhouette did all the work. All I did was glue them to the clothes pin and roll them up.

The water bottles, I love. Again my silhouette did the work, I just had to assemble.

Here is the finished project.

We had a rainbow fruit platter with fruit dip clouds. Yummy veggies, cupcakes, spinach/artichoke dip with bread. It was delicious. My mother in law made me the apothecary jars and I love them. I filled them with lucky gold coins, skittles so we could taste the rainbow;-) and rainbow colored gumballs.

I made this cool subway art for it and sewed a little table runner out of festive fabric. The lucky banner took me forever to make. After all the cutting my silhouette has done, the blade is getting pretty dull, so I had to trim, cut and just help it along a bit. When all is said and done, it was a hit! I love how everything turned out!